


Sleepless

by mydeira, Sadbhyl



Series: Responsible Adults (aka, The Menageaverse) [76]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:35:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike is acting suspiciously.  Someone needs to keep an eye on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepless

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published August 25, 2005
> 
> Takes place the day after Lovers Living, Lovers Dead and during the episode Sleeper. It’s the short ones that always end up trying Mydeira’s patience . . .

After the incident with the ghosts, Ethan moved de facto into the Summers house. None of the girls complained.

Joyce hadn’t been the only one haunted by shades that night. Young Xander had been visited by a childhood friend who had been turned into a vampire, only to become the boy’s first slay. Anya had come home to find him shaking and white on the bathroom floor, barely able to speak. The Slayer had had a visitation as well, although she refused to talk about it. But afterwards her relationship to the vampire subtly changed. She began watching him, suspicious, as though waiting for him to do something.

Finally she confided in them. “I think. . . I think he’s been killing again.”

“I’m sure he hasn’t,” Joyce insisted. “How could he? The soul. . .”

“I don’t know!” Frustration was evident in her voice. “All I know is two nights ago I staked a vampire who insisted Spike sired him. Recently.”

Tara shook her head. “I don’t believe it. If he’d been killing, I’d sense it. Satisfaction or guilt or something.”

“I don’t want to believe it,” the Slayer insisted. “But I have to know for sure.”

So now they were all watching him.

More accurately, at the moment Ethan was watching him. The others were out about their day, work and school and whatnot. Ethan sat on the couch, reading some trashy mystery Joyce had left lying around and trying to make sense of things.

They still hadn’t heard from Rupert. Ten days. Joyce was starting to get frantic. Coupled with the threats the apparition had made to her, she had become certain he was in terrible danger. Every day that went by without hearing from him left Joyce looking more pale and drawn than before. If the man came back safe and sound, Ethan was going to throttle him.

But Ethan wasn’t sure that the real danger was out there. The visitations, the mysterious basement at the high school and now Spike’s suspicious behavior was starting to make him think that whatever destruction this Harrowing was causing out in the world, it was centered right here in Sunnydale.

The heavy tread of boots on the basement stair roused him from his reverie. A moment later, Spike walked into the front hall, pausing at the coat rack. “Evenin’.”

Ethan closed the book. “Good evening.”

Taking down his denim jacket, Spike shrugged into it. “How’s Joyce?”

“A little better. Not so shaken up, but she’s still worried about Ripper.”

Spike nodded in sympathy.

“A little early to be going out, isn’t it? The sun hasn’t quite set.”

“It’s down enough,” he responded negligently.

“Places to be?” Ethan found the conversation almost surreal, with no inflection, no enthusiasm on the part of either man of them.

“Just need to be out of here. Let the family have some privacy.”

“Thoughtful of you.”

“Tell Joyce not to wait up.”

“And Buffy.”

Spike’s expression remained flat.

“Have a pleasant evening.” Ethan kept his tone mild.

With a brief nod, Spike turned and left.

Ethan rose to peer out the window without being observed until he saw the vampire turn to head down Revello towards town. Then he went to the dining room phone and dialed the Slayer. “Yes, he’s on the move. He just left here, heading in the direction of Main Street.”

“Thanks,” she said tersely, disconnecting without another word.

Ethan cradled the handset, the sense of incipient chaos almost palpable around him. He ignored it to go back to his book. Spike was the Slayer’s problem. He had his own lovers to worry about.


End file.
